Sunlight hit his eyes like a blade.
Wyatt jerked upright with a gasp, hands flying to his chest, ribs, throat, searching for blood, broken bone, torn flesh.
Nothing.
No pain.
No wounds.
Only smooth skin and a heartbeat racing so hard it made the room sway.
He froze.
This wasn't his bed.
The sheets smelled of detergent and sun-dried cotton. The air carried something earthy beneath the scent of clean wood—fresh grass, damp soil, open fields. No sirens. No traffic. No distant subway rumble vibrating through concrete.
His hands trembled as he held them in front of his face.
They were his.
But smaller.
Shorter fingers. Narrower wrists. No calluses from years of typing and late nights gripping coffee cups.
Cold panic crawled up his spine.
Then memory hit.
The platform.
Ryan's grin.
The shove.
The scream of steel.
Darkness.
Wyatt sucked in air so sharply it hurt.
"No…"
The voice that came out wasn't his.
Higher. Younger. Fifteen years too young.
He stared at the wall, mind refusing to process what his body already knew.
This isn't real.
He threw the blanket aside and stood—
Then nearly fell.
His brain expected one height, one weight, one center of gravity.
Reality gave him another.
He caught himself on a wooden dresser and looked around the room.
A baseball glove sat on a shelf beside stacked schoolbooks. Posters of football players hung crookedly on the walls. A small desk in the corner held loose pencils, notebooks, and a half-finished sketch of a barn beneath a sunset.
A teenager's room.
A knock sounded.
"Sleepyhead! You dead in there?"
Wyatt stopped breathing.
The voice was familiar in a way that made no sense.
Footsteps approached.
The door opened.
Whitney Fordman leaned against the frame, arms folded, wearing a varsity jacket and the effortless confidence of someone who had never doubted his place in the world.
He was older than Wyatt by a couple of years, broader in the shoulders, easy grin already in place.
"Wow," Whitney said. "You actually look worse awake."
Wyatt stared.
He knew that face.
Late-night reruns. Old DVDs at his father's apartment. A show about a farm boy from another planet who would one day become a legend.
Smallville.
Whitney frowned slightly. "You okay?"
Wyatt forced a nod.
"Yeah."
The voice still sounded wrong.
Whitney snorted. "Good. Because I'm driving, and if you make me late again, I'm telling Mom you cried."
He turned and walked away.
"Five minutes!"
Wyatt remained frozen until the footsteps faded.
Then he moved to the mirror.
A teenage boy stared back.
Light-brown hair. Green-hazel eyes. Familiar features reshaped into something younger, softer, unfinished.
But unmistakably him.
Or what might have been him at fifteen.
He looked away sharply.
No.
Not possible.
He searched the dresser, hands shaking, until he found a wallet.
Inside was a student ID.
Smallville High School
Wyatt Fordman
Age: 15
The photo showed him smiling like he belonged here.
Wyatt sat heavily on the bed.
Fordman.
Whitney Fordman.
His brother?
He squeezed the bridge of his nose and laughed once—a stunned, breathless sound.
"I got reincarnated into a CW prequel."
No answer came.
Only birds outside the window.
Somewhere below, a woman called for breakfast.
Real.
It was all real.
He remembered Manhattan rent prices, deadlines, fluorescent offices, and betrayal sharp enough to still burn.
And now—
Kansas.
Teenage body.
Second life.
Maybe a fictional universe that apparently wasn't fictional at all.
His chest tightened unexpectedly.
Ryan had killed him.
The thought landed heavier here than it had in the panic.
Not the death.
The betrayal.
Years of friendship thrown under a train.
Wyatt clenched his jaw.
Never again.
If this world was giving him another chance, he would never be helpless again. Never blind again. Never trust so easily again.
"Wyatt!" Whitney shouted from downstairs. "Move!"
He stood slowly.
The room swayed less this time.
He opened drawers until he found jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers. Everything fit with strange precision, like stepping into a role someone else had left behind.
When he reached the kitchen, the smell hit first.
Toast. Eggs. Coffee.
A middle-aged man sat at the table reading a newspaper, glasses low on his nose. Weathered hands. Quiet posture.
His father.
Not by blood.
But somehow the recognition still came naturally.
The man looked up and smiled.
"Morning, son."
The simple warmth in those two words nearly stopped Wyatt cold.
No performance.
No networking.
No expectation hidden behind approval.
Just warmth.
"Morning," Wyatt said carefully.
A woman at the stove turned and kissed his forehead before he could react.
"You almost slept through your first Monday."
His mother.
Apron dusted with flour. Hair pinned back. Eyes tired but kind.
He didn't know what to do with kindness that immediate.
So he stood there like an idiot until Whitney laughed from the doorway.
"Can we go before he powers down again?"
Breakfast passed in a blur.
His father talked about feed prices. His mother reminded Whitney to pick something up after practice. Whitney stole toast off Wyatt's plate and denied it while chewing.
The normalcy of it hit harder than the reincarnation.
This family existed whether he understood it or not.
And somehow, they already had room for him.
Outside, the morning air was cool and clean.
A red pickup waited in the driveway.
Fields stretched beyond the house in golden-green waves beneath the sun.
Wyatt stopped on the porch.
No towers.
No sirens.
No steel cages underground.
Just sky.
Whitney tossed him a backpack.
"You getting in, or are you writing poetry?"
Wyatt caught it automatically.
Then, for the first time since waking, he smiled.
"Lead the way."
They climbed into the truck.
The engine rumbled to life.
As they rolled down the dirt road toward town, Wyatt watched the endless fields pass by and felt something unfamiliar settle beneath the shock, beneath the grief, beneath the fear.
Possibility.
Somewhere ahead was Smallville High.
Somewhere ahead was Clark Kent.
And somewhere in this impossible second life, fate had made a mistake.
Because this time—
No one would choose how his story ended.